There is no 'moderate' Islam, Dutch lawmaker tells Israelis

Monday, December 15, 2008 |
Ryan Jones

In his keynote address at a Jerusalem conference dealing with radical Islam on Sunday, Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders warned Israel and its Western allies that building policy based on the myth of "moderate" Islam is a recipe for ultimate defeat.

Speaking at the Begin Center along with other noted experts like Daniel Pipes, Wilders began by reminiscing about time spent in Jerusalem as a teenager, followed by more visits to the Jewish state than he can remember during the course of his political career.

Getting to the meat of his speech, Wilders said that Jerusalem is uniquely positioned on the front lines of a global conflict, though the enemy facing Israel is no longer unique, and is now overrunning places like his native Holland.

Israel is so targeted for hatred and violence because it is "situated on the fault line of jihad," and not because of the so-called "occupation," said Wilders.

"If there would have been no Israel, Islamic imperialism would have found other places to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Therefore, the war against Israel is not a war against Israel. It is a war against the West. It is jihad."

In this way, Wilders said Israel forms a sort of bulwark against an Islamic onslaught on the rest of the Judeo-Christian world, and for that everyone in the West should be eternally grateful to Israel.

"Thanks to Israeli parents who see their children go off to join the army and lie awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and have pleasant dreams, unaware of the dangers looming."

Wilders went on to criticize Europe and America for failing to realize the threat posed by Islam in general, and not just the smaller number of violent jihadists that most Western leaders insist comprise the whole of the problem.

"The Islamic ideology does not seek cooperation or assimilation but aims for submission and dominance over non-Muslims. There is no moderate Islam, there will never be a moderate Islam. There might be moderate people who call themselves Muslim, but there is no moderate Islam."

Wilders explained that even those Muslims who do not pick up the sword are still interested in world domination, which they are quietly working to accomplish via demographic changes and cynical use of Western legal and political systems.

Most Western leaders insist that immigrating Muslims will modernize and bring their religion and culture into the 21st century. But Wilders insisted this is not the goal of any Muslims - radical or "moderate." They do not intend to conform, but rather to dominate, either by violent conquest or subtle subjugation.

The event concluded with the first public screening in Israel of Wilders' short film on the Islamic threat titled Fitna.

Fitna has earned Wilders an avalanche of death threats, though he pointed out that Muslims themselves made the film, which consists solely of passages from the Koran, speeches by Muslim clerics and footage of Muslim terrorist attacks.

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